The old way of accomplishing this task was to use an index card to enter the procedure and give it to the residency secretary to enter. At any moment, I could check back in my personal log to see what patients I had operated on and what procedure was performed. I'd have to say that most residency programs across the country have already moved to an electronic-based procedure log system, but most are Web-based. The added flexibility of being able to bring this capability to the handheld makes entering the data more efficient and accurate.

The great thing about all of the solutions I've listed is that they can synchronize with desktop databases, such as Access and Filemaker (at http://www.filemaker.com). Satellite Forms also has an Enterprise Edition (at http://www.pumatech.com/Satellite_Forms_Enterprise.html) that can link to any ODBC (Open Data Base Connectivity) database. Besides procedure logs, you can set up databases to track anything you want, such as ER visits, diagnostic testing results, etc.

Spreadsheet solutions and Documents to Go
Some physicians ask me whether there are any spreadsheet solutions for the Palm OS that can talk to Excel on the desktop side. Their reasoning is that they prefer to store their data in a spreadsheet format since they already have a template they want to use, or they actually want to calculate data as it's entered. Both QuickSheet (at http://www.cesinc.com/quicksheet/index.html) and TinySheet (at http://www.iambic.com/pilot/tinysheet3/) for the Palm OS are spreadsheet applications that can synchronize with Excel.

For those wishing to simply view and edit spreadsheet data on their Palm devices without having the full power to edit formulas and such, I would recommend DataViz's Documents to Go at http://www.dataviz.com/products/documentstogo/index.html. The latest version allows you to download Microsoft Word and Excel files to your handheld for editing and viewing. This is a great solution that's quick and easy to use.

Another use of Documents to Go in healthcare is for medical charting. I'm frequently asked at speaking engagements how users can download an existing Word template for a medical exam for editing. As a low-cost electronic medical records solution, many physicians simply store their charts in a Word document for each patient. Using Documents to Go, they can now edit chart notes using their Palm devices.

Internet portals and MyPalm
Even an avid Palm device user like myself is sometimes caught without my handheld on my person. As much as I would love to be attached to my Palm device one hundred percent of the time, this is simply not realistic due to the highly mobile nature of healthcare. It seems that few users realize that the MyPalm Internet portal (formerly AnyDay.com) is available for non-wireless Palm device users at http://www.palm.net.

For those of you not familiar with the service, MyPalm offers you the ability to synchronize your handheld data with an Internet-based PIM (Personal Information Manager). You can then access your synchronized data from any computer with an Internet connection and a Web browser. It's an entirely free service and one that I highly encourage other physicians to use, since it also solves another issues that I'll explain now.